Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1887-03-28
THE RUSSIAN NIHILIsTs.
How the Terrorist Adapts Himself
to American Ways.


NEW YORK, March 27.-"The Terror
lists will just reach the Gar" said Rus
sian Nihilist now here, as he spoke OF the
recent bombshell plot in ST. Petersburg.
cit is the second known attempt against
Alexander ILL.,, but there have been fifty
other like plots within the past five years,
never suspected even by the horde OF Sc
cret police guarding the Little Father,
who Will one day suffer the doom OF his
predecessor"
You can any day see here in New York
several of the Terrorsts who have played
part in previous conspiracies against
the Car, and the speaker on this COCA
sion was the author ofthat extraordinary
subtarranean dynamite plot at Moscow
which came within q hairs breadth OF
success, and which sent all concerned
in it, excepting the chief actor, to the
scatfOld.
1t is curious to see how these Terrorist
cOnspirators who find refuge or this side
of the Atlantic, after their desperate ad-
ventures, are lost In the general mass and
fall INTO the ways OF the country. The
author of the Moscow plot Just referred
to, for example. has struck the lines OF
fortune as an inventor, and one OF his re-
cent contracts is for the supply OF bank
ing institutions with an ingenious inVen-
ton that is very serviceable indeed. He
is business looking, taciturn, practical
man, who has become naturaliZed, and is
as full of American politics as he once
was of Russian conspiracies. Another
of these coBspirators who played his part
in Terrorist plot that shook the Car
palace OF Peter and Paul is now busy in
New York as an electrician, and the COM
plicated apparatus that fills his quarters
reminds you OF Edison's workshops at
Menlo Park. Yet another Terrorist. for
merly belonging to the Russian artillery,
who was an actor in the same plot, re-
Gently left this city for a far Western
State, where he is engaged as mining
engineer. Among tho other members of
| the Russian Terrorist circle now here, one
is a writer, another doctor, a third a
| minister, while several are engaged in
| ordinary business pursuits. Few of the
| people who know them, or have dealings
with them, are aware of their antecedents,
about which they themselves are always
silent, both on account of the prejudices
| they would encounter and by the danger
to which they believe they are subject.
Upon the head of at least one of them a
large price is set, and few o. them ever
get rid of the idea that they are under the
surveillance of Russian spies. 1t will be
remem bered that when Mr.. Blaine was
Secretary of State a demand was made
| upon him for the delivery of Leo Hartman,
who fed from this city to escape arrest.
According to recent dispatches from St.
Petersburg the Terrorist suspected OF be-
ing the author of the latest dynamite plot
against the Car was that Degaiff, who.
three years ago, after the execution OF
Col. Sudeikin, is believed to have found
a hiding place in New York.
But what | started out to say was this,
that the Terrorist refugees In New York
and their hundreds OF Nihilist brethren
from Russia are apt to settle down here
as busy American citizens OF a very
peaceful and practical turn OF mind.
JOHN SWINToE.